The elephant in the room is that fuel cells very quickly "wear out" and
need to be replaced at great expense. They wear out more quickly than
the batteries they replace, which is ironic.
_If_ you can figure out how to make H2 economically (and with less
pollution per mile than electricity) you still need to solve the problem
of how to make fuel cells last, and be more economic. As it is now, a
vehicle fuel cell lasts about a year before it becomes "poisoned" by the
air that it must inhale to combine with the H2 to make electricity.
What is ironic is that carbon monoxide (CO) in the inhaled air is a
serious issue for fuel cell poisoning. Even in tiny amounts.
Even if they figure out how to make the membrane less damaged by CO,
other contaminants in the inhaled air, and in the H2 fuel, chemically
link onto the fuel cell membranes or coat them and the fuel cell
degrades over time. This is the nature of system that must be fueled by
external gases. Contaminants are inevitable. It is very expensive to
replace or rebuild the fuel cell. They are, in essence, a big catalytic
converter with the same expensive and exotic metals involved.
A fuel cell is just a _very_ complicated battery that has an external
electrolyte source, after all. If you remove the fuel cell when it dies,
and replace it with a less complicated and less expensive battery, you
will be back to a nice BEV car. You can charge this from any electrical
outlet at home and not have to go to a fueling station. You can charge
it from a solar panel, or a wind mill.
A big advantage of a BEV is that you can park it inside if you like. You
can't park a fuel cell vehicle in an ordinary garage or a parking
garage. High pressure H2 is a no go for such spaces. The H2 can possibly
leak and then it rises and hugs the ceiling in enclosed places. You
garage door opener can touch off a hydrogen explosion if this happens.
Thus, no indoor parking allowed with a fuel cell vehicle.
Bill D.
On 8/14/2021 2:24 AM, Mark Abramowitz wrote:
You’ve completely ignored what I said - did you even read it?
As far as the economics, not only will it not take a miracle to make “green”
hydrogen more economical than fossil hydrogen, but at least one company is
building production plants that they say will make it competitive in cost, and
then improve it further. The technology is improving quickly, and as the cost
of renewables drop, the production costs also drop, as that is the biggest
driver of costs.
As far as your comment of being ahead with electricity being stored in a
battery, I think your looking at it the wrong way in two (if not more)
important ways (and I won’t even get into battery production and recycling
issues that don’t get taken into account). First, a battery doesn’t meet all
duty cycle needs, which is why for some uses you need hydrogen even if you
prefer batteries. The alternative is fossil fuel combustion in an IC engine.
That’s why most of see fuels cell electrics as complementary to BEVs, not
either/or. Secondly, and maybe more to your point, electricity, like hydrogen,
gets produced in many ways. The GREET model, which is generally accepted as the
gold standard for calculating GHG comparisons, If I’m remembering correctly,
shows both BEVs and FCEVs reducing GHGs as compared to fossil combustion ICEs,
no matter the input energy.
- Mark
Sent from my Fuel Cell powered iPhone
On Aug 13, 2021, at 5:14 AM, Bill Dube via EV <[email protected]> wrote:
Here is an article published today on "Clean Hydrogen". (Not so clean,
according to the article. surprise surprise )
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/12/clean-fuel-blue-hydrogen-coal-study
From _all_ I've read, even in Scientific American, you are way ahead simply
using plain old electricity instead of hydrogen, if you wish to curtail climate
change. Electricity for running a vehicle is much more economic, and is far
more ecological than hydrogen. At least for the foreseeable future.
All but the tiniest fraction of hydrogen produced these days comes from fossil
fuel. This is because it is by far the most economic way to produce hydrogen.
Even so, it is _still_ far more expensive to run a car with the cheapest H2
than run it directly with electricity stored in batteries.
Perhaps someone, somewhere, will invent some miraculous possess that will turn
the tables completely, but that simply hasn't happened yet.
The US government is going to throw another $8bn down this black hole. If $8bn
isn't enough to buy that miracle cure, then perhaps it will be time to give H2
the last rites and finally move on.
Bill D.
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